» Self Storage Advice
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Things to Look for When Renting StorageBy jeff on February 2, 2011 | No Comments
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Before renting a space at any Miami Beach storage facility, it is in your best interest in order to go on a site tour. This is your chance to see if the internet or if the manager at the facility was telling the truth. This is your opportunity to see how close or how far the facility is from your home or your work place. This could give you vital information in order to help you decide if this is the right facility for you. You should have a checklist ready to go when you schedule your site tour with the facility manager.
Do they have:
An on-site manager? The onsite manager at a Miami Beach storage facility will make sure that facility is safe at all times. Most of the time the manager lives on site and will ensure that all is well when you are not there. This is a great benefit for a facility to have. This will make you feel safe and have peace of mind.
Access controlled gates? With an access control gate, the facility is able to keep out those people who do not store there. This is good because you do not want people just walking around the facility when they do not belong there. Usually the facility will give each person a pin number that is unique to them. The facility will know who is coming into the facility at different times. This will help with security.
Door alarms? For some reason if a person is able to get through the gates and get into the facility, each unit will have an alarm on it. This way the facility can prevent people that do not belong in your space out. An alarm will sound whenever the door is opened without the gate code put in. This alarm will let the proper people know that something is wrong at your space.
Knowledgeable employees on staff? It is very important that the staff is friendly and knows all that there is to know about the facility. The facility makes sure that they know their facility in and out. They will make sure that you get to your storage space fine along with answering any questions that you have. The worst thing that could happen is that a customer has a question that the facility staff is not able to answer. Even if that answer is generic, it is still important that they answer with confidence.
Is the property? No one wants to walk into a facility and see it full of trash and not well kept. Every unit should be cleaned out and ready to go for the next person. No one wants to store at a Miami Beach storage facility that has graffiti on their walls or broken windows. The facility should be nice and clean. When a customer comes to the facility the facility should be nice and bright. A customer wants to know that they can see everything whenever they are there. It is never a good thing if the customer goes to visit their unit and they are not able to see to maneuver around. Lastly does the facility have their shelves stocked with the different storing supplies that you need. If you need something then the facility should have it in stock.
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Treating Every Storage Customer as an IndividualBy jeff on February 1, 2011 | No Comments
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When someone calls into their local Florida storage facility the property manager does their best to help them. Not everyone that is calling for self storage will have the best situation they are calling about, but it does not matter, we know that we are there to assist them. There will always be a person or people that will rub us the wrong way and get us frustrated. The key is to stick with it be patient and still try to serve the customer to our best ability. A local Key Biscayne Storage facility manager recently had one person they spoke to in particular made that a difficult task.
The customer first called in for one store, but then said the location he was inquiring about was too far away. He was in an area with several stores nearby. So this manager took it upon himself to ask good questions in order to best determine what his needs were. The manager first asked him for an address so that he could see the closest location. The customer refused, saying he did not want to give out that info. Sometimes customers do not want to give out information to managers especially when they feel that they are not able to help them. Also customers do not want to feel like they are going to have someone hounding them about storage when they do not want that.
After ten minutes of searching the area, the manager found the right store that he believed would fit the location needs of the customer. However, that facility did not have the size he needed. That frustrated the caller. In Florida there could be many different facilities to store from and many of those are local, but it does not guarantee the space will be available. The best thing that the local manager could do is get the name and number of the customer and let the manager know what the situation is. Maybe the local manager could help them find a space that would work for him. The customer did not want to give me a phone number so that that local manager could call the customer back regarding availability.
The customer wanted that local manager to find out when the space they needed would become available. They explained that they did not know when the unit he needed was available. The customer and the manager went back and forth for quite some time. The customer hung up upset even though the manager did everything they could do in order to make them happy. They were patient, they went out of their way to find another facility that would work for them, and they took their time. The local manager should have no regrets about helping this customer.
About twenty minutes after the call was over the same customer called back with the same dilemma. This time the call went different. This time, he was more inclined to give me his info to see if the facility that we narrowed him down to had a space available soon. It was assumed he changed his attitude since their family of stores was the only ones still open on that same day. It is very interested how patience and kindness works hand in hand.
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Organize Your Move With Self StorageBy admin on February 3, 2010 | No Comments
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If you are planning to move your home, then you certainly have a lot going through your mind. Indeed, you are probably thinking about how you are going to manage to pack up all of your belongings within your timeframe. Also, you are probably wondering how you are going to make sure that you keep your belongings safe while they are in transit. Of course, it is understandable if you are going through a lot of stress, and it is dually understandable if you think that you are not going to be able to get everything done on time. That much being said, though, you should rest assured that things are not nearly as complicated as you think they are going to be. Contrary to what you have heard, you are going to be able to get everything done on time, and it is not going to be nearly as stressful as you might think. Simply follow a few basic steps and you are going to get everything done in a timely, organized fashion.
First of all, you are going to want to be sure that you are packing your belongings safely. Your bigger items are not going to need to be packed, necessarily, but your smaller items are going to require a little bit of tender love and care. Smaller items are going to move around quite a bit when they are in the back of your truck, so you have to be sure that you are buying the right types of boxes and moving supplies for them. Typically speaking, you are going to be able to get all of the moving supplies that you are going to need from your local self storage facilities, so there is not going to be all that much for you to worry about, here. Just buy boxes that are the appropriate size. Of course, you are also going to want to be sure that you are packing your boxes well, which means that you are going to want to look for additional supplies. Never forget that packing paper, bubble wrap, and packing peanuts are going to keep your belongings nice and safe.
Moving on, here, you are going to want to be sure that you have figured out how you are going to move your belongings from one home to another, physically speaking. If you are planning to use your standard vehicle to get the job done, then you are going to want to run a few calculations. Figure out how much you are going to spend in gas, and how much time it is going to take for you to get the job done with your standard vehicle. Compare this to what you are going to spend renting a moving truck, and see if the numbers really, truly add up. Usually, you are actually going to end up saving money when you rent a larger moving truck.
Finally, here, be sure that you have a rough idea of how much stuff you have. You are going to want to be sure that you have packed the belongings that you are going to keep so that you know how much money it is going to cost, and how much space you are going to need, when it comes to renting a moving truck or a moving service. Typically speaking, boxing up your items is also going to bring you a certain peace of mind, as you are going to feel like you are actually getting your work done. While it may seem like a small step, it is actually a giant leap in the right direction.
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Tips For Efficient Self StorageBy admin on May 13, 2009 | No Comments
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Everybody who has any belongings needs self storage advice whether they admit it or not. It is an activity that takes up time in every body life but only few are able to do it to their satisfaction. Since you are going to do this everyday in some form or the other why not take some tips from the experts who do it for a living especially since most of the ideas do not require you to invest a great deal of money or time.
Give Away What You Can – The biggest mistake people make it to hoard things that they do not need. If you could calculate the cost of these unused items in terms of the time they require to store, cost of the space they take up in your home and mental clutter that they cause every time you see them, you would rethink about keeping them. Take out all the things that you have not used in a year and give them to somebody who may have some use for them. Allow yourself the luxury of keeping say 5 things for sentimental reasons and give away the rest. This first step is actually the best storing advice anybody can ever give you.
Calculate the cost of putting things at home – Once you have cleared your home of junk or things that you did not need, calculate the amount of space you are using in your home for storing purposes. While there is no definitive formula, you should ensure that premium residential property area in your home is not being misused for storing. For those with large unwieldy items that get used once or twice in a year consider the option of professional cargo space unit. It actually works out a lot cheaper in the long run and rids your home of clutter.
Create more space in your own home – Yes it is possible to create more space with a little creativity in modifying existing furniture. Self storage advice says that ideally everything should have an aesthetic and functional value. Your tables can have a small section or recess to store items. Beds can have storing space to keep linen and other items. Even dressers can be revolving with drawers to keep cosmetics and other items. In fact, sometimes putting that extra handle bar or partition can really improve the utilitarian value of spaces without necessarily impacting the aesthetics.
Call in the experts for the valuables – Get self storage advice from people who do it for a living. At a small cost or rather investment learns how to store valuables and other art objects that can spoil if not handled carefully. So when you do open your furniture or painting a year later, it will not have been attacked by seepage, mildew or various other household pests. Packing is simply not a matter of finding a box and tape there are various things to be considered that only professionals can advise you on. Of course, you should do this only for expensive or irreplaceable belongings.
Actually almost everybody has some self storage advice or the other. Storing is such an all pervasive activity that it is difficult not to have an opinion on it. Store if you must but when you do, make sure that you do not stress yourself and those around you in doing it. As with everything else, outsource when it goes beyond your competence and think of the rental as an investment. For more self storage advice and tips you could search the net for useful blogs on the subject.